Is Facebook’s Ban On Crypto Ads In Anticipation Of A Litecoin Integration

In early January rumors started spreading about whether Facebook would either adopt Litecoin or create its own cryptocurrency. On Tuesday, Facebook announced that it would block all cryptocurrency and ICO advertising on its platform.

Coincidence? Let’s look at the details.

Between December 6th and 17th of 2017, Litecoin (LTC) tripled in value, from $102.93 to $360.66 according to CoinGecko. Three days after it started to decline from its all-time-high, Charlie Lee, the founder of Litecoin announced that he sold off all of his LTC. Since then, Litecoin has been on a mostly downward trend and currently sits at $159.50.

There has been some speculation about whether Lee’s sell-off had an impact on the prices of Litecoin, and there have even been accusations of insider trading, given that he was the Director of Engineering at Coinbase. He denies these allegations and explained that his decision to dump his LTC was to remove any sort of conflict of interest between his influence and any potential gains. Taking the financial gains out of the equation, it stands to reason that Lee may now tweet more freely about his thoughts while focusing on his skills as an engineer.

At the time that Lee sold off his LTC, Coinbase announced the appointment of Facebook executive, David Marcus to their board of directors. David Marcus is the Head of Messenger at Facebook, with expertise in mobile-first products. Prior to that, he was President of PayPal, where he accelerated the overall growth of the company. The appointment of Marcus to the Coinbase board of directors sparked some speculation.

Tom Luongo published the story on December 20, which was later picked up by Zero Hedge and various other publications. According to Luongo, Charlie’s announcement prompted a big sell-off in the wake of Coinbase adding Bitcoin Cash (BCH) to its platform. He saw the negative response from the market as temporary, though Litecoin is still on a decline.

From a technology standpoint however, it’s a promising coin. It’s lighter, faster and cheaper than Bitcoin, is fully capable of smart contracts and according to Luongo, it has a “payment processing layer to facilitate point-of-sale convenience while retaining proof-of-work security.” It has the sort of technology built into it that an organization like Facebook might find appealing.

Two weeks after this speculative article came out, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he’s “looking into cryptocurrency.” In his January 5th announcement on Facebook, Zuckerberg said:

"Back in the 1990s and 2000s, most people believed technology would be a decentralizing force. But today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies - and governments using technology to watch their citizens - many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it. There are important counter-trends to this - like encryption and cryptocurrency - that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people’s hands. But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I’m interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services."

This brings us to today. According to a CNBC article by Kurt Wagner, "Facebook is banning all ads that promote cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, in an effort to prevent people from advertising what the company is calling ‘financial products and services frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.'" In other words, if you launch an ICO, or want to promote a cryptocurrency-related group or business, you’re probably out of luck, no matter how legitimate your business is.

Litecoin founder Charlie Lee previously tweeted that in 2018 there will be "One huge unexpected surprise."

The Litecoin team has been hard at work working with companies to support Litecoin. Nothing to announce yet, but here's what's in the works:

If indeed Facebook is looking to tie its business to cryptocurrency and/or blockchain technology, as Zuckerberg himself has suggested, whether it’s by way of Litecoin or some other technology, then it stands to reason that such a ban on advertising would clear out the competition and would allow Facebook to corner the market on this technology, using their tremendous platform to push it out to a massive audience.

It’s only a matter of time before we are able to confidently analyze the motivation behind Facebook’s ban on crypto advertising. It could very well be that they genuinely want to prevent scammers from taking advantage of their audience. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that they are paving the way for a new Facebook coin offering, utilizing the blockchain to facilitate transactions on Facebook to purchase goods, advertising space and other things of value.

more like, companies work with coins like Litecoin and Ripple to learn blockchain, but in the end, why would they adopt someone else's when they can just create their own and control price fluctuations. because, as Ripple shows, banks and companies can't give two shits about decentralization they just like blockchain ledgers.

that said, Facebook is desperate to bring people back to FB so 'cryptos' are a great way to do that.

to quote Social Network, on why people will use FB

MARK "These two things are what drive life at college. Are you having sex or aren't you. It's why people take certain classes, sit`where they sit, go where they go, do what they do, and at its, um, center,`you know, that's what theFacebook is gonna be about, People are gonna log on because after all the cake and watermelon there's a chance they're gonna-

EDUARDO --meet a girl.

MARK --get laid. Yes.

Replace LAID with PAID, and you got Facebook's second wave.

That, and to quote another classic, "Never underestimate the greed of the other guy." In this case, greed to be more important to socio-political culture.

Mark needs Facebook to have another Web 2.0 moment -- a 3.0 moment -- usher in some new wave of tech. It's why he invests in VR, AI, Cryptos, too. He wants to be seen as a Steve Jobs (who came back and changed how society uses tech a second time with the iPod and iTunes and a third time with the iPhone): not just a one-hit-wonder (creating social media) but show that he can do it again (being seen as the 'Apple of VR' or the 'Apple of Cryptos).

And why? He wants to be President

Because he has political ambitions, and he doesn't want, in 10 years, Facebook then to be as relevant as MySpace is today. He needs to continue to be on the forefront of something that has social impact.

Again, enter virtual reality, AI, cryptos, etc. And he'll bet the farm on it because if he doesn't succeed, either way he loses -- either Facebook dies a slow death or because he died on the wrong tech. The only path forward to still being relevant in 10 years is through VR, AI, or Cryptos.

maybe he'll try to do to them with Cryptos the same thing he did to them with Social Media =p

personally I still give the vast credit to Mark since he changed and expanded the idea so much, but gotta admit it was the Winklevii that first spotted the basic idea: the basic concept of a social media 'network,' opposed to the social media 'pages' (up until that point, a la MySpace).

could even say, the analogy worse further because the same sort of Winklevii tunnel vision is present with BTC, where they just envised a simple local network with one goal, and then Mark comes in and says 'no no no you're doing it wrong.' ... in the same way, they could be so focused on the financial POV and their hard-on to make BTC 'virtual gold,' and then Mark swoops in again and tries to socialize it -- again with his own version.

which, again, means why would Mark and Facebook use Litecoin? does Mark have a history of giving credit where it's due or sharing? :P

never underestimate the greed of the insecure obsessive-compulsive control freak with mild Asperger's and a relevancy-god complex =)

he has a history of acquisitions though, so I guess it depends if you wanna say Cryptos are more like FB or more like INS or OR.

and, u never know, if it's trying to change his ways then you can do a lot worse than working with Charlie Lee to 'rehabilitate your image' by empowering people with decentralizing and democratize money...

so, I guess it depends, which Mark do you think will bring cryptos to social media ^_^ or how bad you think he wants to be the 'good guy' so he can be President (or at least a Tech Jesus like Steve Jobs).

A crypto coin start-up has disappeared from the internet with a supposed haul of millions in investor cash, leaving a short, succinct message.
For hours, the site for Prodeum simply read: ‘Penis’.
To make the joke even better, Prodium is a medication designed to reduce infections of the urinary tract.

I had got out of LTC when this guy sold off, but shortly after that reversed my opinion. LTC is now one of my primary holdings, and I will be buying more soon. It is VERY cheap IMO, and it's going to move upward in a major way soon. Also if there is still some correcting to do, it is likely near it's bottom even if the other cryptos still leg down a good notch, making it safer as well.

No. As anybody who is familiar with the Department of Justice's war on online gambling will know, the removal of the ads is a damage limitation exercise in the face of possible action by both the SEC and the Department of Justice.

And to answer why Facebook removed cryptocurrency ads, more likely to reduce the spam. If they wanted to get in on the crypto-currency action they could just invent their own one, just the brand would have investors flocking in and they would get to enjoy all the free "mining" money.

As the bankers, globalists and SJW's go so goes fb. What the fuck else is new. It's a CIA data gathering portal with pictures of your neighbor's cat to make it seem totally innocuous. fb cannot and will not prove they are separate from government surveillance because they are.

Some refiners worry the global kilobar standard will lead to losses of income, others say it will boost the market.

“You can add a lot of information with blockchain, where the gold was mined, where it was refined, serial numbers, who owned it previously. It could bring new demand to the market,” a physical market source said.""